Tires are known having embedded therein wires as reinforcing members to give improved cut resistance. These wires are corrugated to impart flexibility to the tire (see, for example, Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication SHO 57-2701704).
Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication SHO 52-8084 or SHO 64-75227 discloses a process and apparatus for producing such corrugated wires.
The conventional process for producing the tire component comprises arranging a multiplicity of parallel wires in a plane, passing the multiplicity of wires between a pair of gears to corrugate the assembly of wires, subsequently laying down the vertically corrugated wires into a planar arrangement by means of rollers, and thereafter covering the assembly with rubber over the upper and lower sides thereof to obtain a corrugated wire ply.
With such a conventional process for producing the tire component which handles many separate wires, the shaping of the wires by the gears is dependent largely on the tension applied to the wires immediately before and after they are fed to the gears, and the stretchability of the wires (which is dependent on the material, twist pitch, wire diameter, etc.).
However, the process disclosed in the publication SHO 64-75227 encounters difficulty in shaping the wires because they are subjected to definite tension only immediately before feeding to the gears.
Further, since the individual wires are freely movable until the wire arrangement is covered with rubber in the final step, the conventional process is liable to the serious trouble of some wires crossing other wise owing to a difference in stretchablity between the wires or to inaccurate positioning of the wires relative to one another.